The Green's Citizens Income is a winner.

There are many things about the Green Party, now ensconced in their annual conference, that give me the screaming abdabs but when it comes to their policy of a Citizens Income I reckon that they can't be faulted. Just think how a salary of £10,000 p.a. as a RIGHT OF CITIZENSHIP and regardless of any other income, would transform lives. At a stroke benefit fraud would disappear, as would the constant harassment of the disabled and unemployed. Those who wanted to work, and these would be in the overwhelming majority I suspect, would top up their Citizens Income by 100% or even 400%. Those who preferred not to be employed but rather to care for children, dig their allotments or master the tuba would be secure in the knowledge that, no matter what life might throw at them, impoverishment would be held at bay. A universal wage as a right would combine with free first rate health care and education to form the foundation of a just society. How would all this be paid for? Why, by a higher rate of tax on the wealthy of course. But might that not lead to a mass exodus of "talent" who would all decamp to Switzerland quicker than a rat up a pump? Ah yes! Switzerland. The richest country in Europe and the one with the highest wages and lowest rate of home ownership.